2014 Finlandia Trophy Blog: Greetings from Finland!

Hey Everyone!

Stasia and I just made it to Finland! We are so excited to be here for the first time! Finlandia Trophy is a competition that we have always wanted to go to. We have heard nothing but great things about the event and the beautiful country. We can’t wait to get started!

The trip here was nice and easy, which is saying a lot for us. Stasia and I are notorious for bad travel luck, but so far so good.  We started off in Philly, and then we made our connection in Amsterdam. We had a 3 hour layover, and then we made it safely to Helsinki. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when our luggage came through at the baggage claim.  So, it looks like we will both be skating, and in costume at this competition. Score!

After a tiny celebration, we got a ride to our hotel. It was about a 20 minute drive from the airport. Our drivers name was Paul, and he was a super nice guy. We asked him a lot of the common touristy questions, and he gave us some really great tips on how we could make the most of our visit including which bus to take, which color, and which number would get us to the best places. Then he asked the typical travel questions, “How long will you be visiting?” “Where are you from?” “Will you be staying for any other competitions?” “How do your horses get here? By plane or by boat?”…

Needless to say, it took us a couple of seconds to answer that last one. My first thought was, did something get lost in translation here? I thought that maybe it was just my “I just got off the plane” brain playing tricks on me, or was he just making a joke about figure skating horses? Nope, he genuinely cared about the horses that we may or may not have brought with us to Finland. So, we informed him that we were here for the figure skating competition, and that we did not know the first thing about riding horses. I think Paul was equally surprised by my answer as I was by his question. So, we will call it a draw. 

We don’t have anything planned for tonight, but we are hoping to do some sight seeing in the next couple of days. Maybe we will even catch an Equestrian competition?

Until next time! -Colin & Stasia